Vince’s Blog

Related to my previous post, this one is about Steve Jobs. After he pulled out of the keynote speech, there has been a whole lot of speculation about his health and well-being. Today, Apple released a letter from Steve Jobs that details the reason for his weight loss. I guess it’s a hormonal imbalance problem. Here is the letter from Apple’s CEO:

“Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve ”

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Tags: apple, hormones, imbalance, steve jobs, weight loss

Sadly, for those of you who already know, this is the last MacWorld that Apple will be attending. Roughly a week ago, Apple announced that the Macworld event that will be taking place starting Friday in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, will be the last for the company. Another surprise: Steve Jobs won’t be giving the keynote either. His replacement will be Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwife Product Marketing. I guess it kind of does make sense. There have been rumors floating around that Apple has wanted out for some time now and they’re finally leaving. People are still flocking to MacWorld though, so no worries people. Go check it out. Consumers have learned not to buy new Macs during the months before each MacWorld, since there’s a huge probablility that there will be massive changes or tweaks to their products. This is never good for business. If Apple does have something, it’s a good time to dumb it down since the economy isn’t exactly at it’s best right now. Nevertheless, this news has been a little bit of a dissappointment to me. Anyway, get ready for MacWorld! The January Macworld will take place in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, located smack dab in the downtown business district. The dates are January 5th (which is tomorrow) until the 9th. I won’t be attending, but nevertheless I’ll be hearing about what goes on, hopefully as it unfolds. If you’re headed over to San Francisco, sit tight and enjoy. If you’re not, well listen for the news. Oh and hey, what is up with the tagline on the MacWorld 2009 website? “Ourspace.yourface. Makes you all twittery, huh?” That’s definitely a brilliant catch-phrase. I like it! All three rolled into one huh? Enjoy!

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Tags: apple, expo, macworld, moscone center, san francisco, tech, technology

I’ve already wished you all a Happy New Year. Everywhere you go, it’s Happy New Year and so, it’s only right that Google puts up another image. Happy New Year!

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Tags: celebration, google, happy new year

I guess this is it. It’s finally 2009. I really can’t believe that it has already been a whole new year. I guess in a way it is a good thing that everything passed by so fast, but it is also a negative thing because things start blurring together. It just turned 2009 about half an hour ago here on San Francisco. I hope everyone has a great New Years Day regardless of where you are in the world and regardless of what your situation is. Take a day off. Even if New Years means nothing to you, take some time to just think and reflect. Have you made any resolutions? I think I might have to start making some of my own resolutions. That’s all I have to say for now and, like I said before, have a great one!

Tags: celebration, new years, wishes

Yes, it’s about that time of the year again. It’s where the beginning and the end of a year comes together. Who knew that this transition could be such an instant. If you think about it, where does the new and old really come together and blend, and does it? Doesn’t that mean for a finite instant you are straddling both 2008 and 2009? Anyway, we’re here to talk about the new New Year’s Eve Ball. The New Year’s Ball has been made over with some amazing technology and so far, from what I’ve seen, it’s definitely something to be proud of. It’s mesmerizing onscreen. I’ve been taking a look at Hulu’s live stream of the event and the ball is quite an accomplishment. I only wish that I could have been able to have a look at it in person. Maybe sometime down the road I’ll be able to visit during New Year’s and thus have a look at the wonderful object. Anyway, this year, the ball has 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDs and 2,668 Waterford crystals. Isn’t that just awesome? The ball is 12 feet wide and weighs 11,875 pounds. How about another cool fact? The ball uses 20% less energy than the one last year and can produce a combination of  16 million colors and billions of different patterns. It must be true! I’ve seen only a couple of patterns on the screen, but so far none of them have been repeated and the colors are truly amazing. Just something interesting for the New Years. Enjoy!

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Tags: 2009, ball, celebration, environment, hulu, LCD, new years

Well, I guess it’s the year of streaming live events. Today is December 31st, 2008, which happens to be New Year’s Eve. Currently, the time in San Francisco is 7:11 as I’m writing this. That means that the time is 22:11 in New York City’s Times Square where the huge celebration is. Hulu announced today that it would stream the celebration right to your home. So if you’re not doing anything this New Year’s Eve, make sure you tune in. The stream just went live a couple of minutes ago and so far, Taylor Swift has already performed. The ball is amazing. Every now and then, the cameras pan over to the ball, which keeps changing colors. It does look pretty exciting! Lots of people and definitely quite a commotion going on down there. I’ll be enjoying New Years with the family here at home and having a little party right where I am now. However, I’ll be tuning in for the rest of the Time’s Square New Years Party. Enjoy! To join in on all the action, just follow the link here.

EDIT //* 7:35 PST - Lionell Ritchie is performing!

EDIT//* 9:02 PST - It’s over! The count-down is over, the ball has dropped and so the New Years is in New York!

(By the way, Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton were present.)

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Tags: celebration, hulu, new years, new york, party, stream, taylor swift, video

Merry Christmas everyone and have a great one! Happy Holidays!

I just got a Facebook wall post from a very good friend of mine asking about a post I did about Photoshop alternatives. I realized I haven’t posted anything ever since the 18th of December. Just looking at my track record, that is actually a long time for me to be away from the news. Why? If you really need to know, I’ve been at work with the Coast Guard, however, that is all I am allowed to say. Back to the topic at hand. Technology is amazing. It evolves with every passing day, literally shaped by millions of people, each one with the ability to shape an important aspect of it. Same goes for software. My first post about photoshop alternatives described a downloadable software called GIMP, a vector editing tool called Inkscape, Adobe Photoshop Express, and splashup. Then, I did another post, this time talking about another online tool, sumopaint. Here is the next big thing in image editing and vector graphics.

Here is an updated compilation of more online resource tools. So far, the only reliable software download that can replace Adobe Photoshop is GIMP. However, if you are willing to do your work online, you might as well take a look at the following websites. I would recommend trying a couple of them out just to get a feel and see which ones you like more. Feel free to comment on the ones you prefer.

1) Alilg.com

It’s a pretty good site overall, but definitely not a match for sumopaint or even Photoshop Express. It can be a little bit slow and sluggish, since it does run on Java. However, it is simple and easy to use. If you only need minor editing, like editing text, gray-scaling, cropping, or adding simple text to the picture, it’ll be the ideal thing. Sadly, not up to my standards.

2) Pixlr.com

Excellent site! Reminds me almost exactly of Photoshop. Yea I know it’ll never be Photoshop because Photoshop costs $300 with a student discount. Most of us, unless you are really into graphics or are a designer/developer don’t need something so powerful. If you just want to doodle or are looking for an online program that has most of the features of Photoshop, look no further. I found that Pixlr has a couple of really cool filters, like the Kaleidoscope filter pictured below. I say definitely give this one a try. It’ll most likely end up at the top of your list.

3) Pixenate.com

A great site! It lets you upload pictures from your desktop or import them directly from Facebook. It’s a little bit slow, but that’s not much to complain about. It’s not that great if you want to do all the editing manually like in Photoshop, but it’s great for preset effects. Among the tools are flipping, basic fills, sepias, red eye fixes, and oh, my favorite! They also have a TEETH whitening tool. It’s not every day you get one of those. It’s simple to use, but it recommended only for photo editing.

4) Phixr.com

Another site that is good for doodling, but not much of anything else. I found it really easy to make speech bubbles with. The tools are simple, but the use interface can be a little bit confusing. However, one thing about this internet tool is the ability to save your finished “masterpiece” onto all the popular image hosting sites. Could be handy?

5) DrPic.com

Not much to say about this one. Free, easy, simple and clean. Like most of the other photo manipulation tools, it doesn’t resemble Photoshop much, but it will lift your photos out of the rut.

6) Aviary Phoenix (and suite)

Aviary is a compilation of Phoenix, Peacock, Toucan, and Raven. Each one is a different element of design. It’s amazing and I’m actually really glad I stumbled onto it. Phoenix is your standard online image manipulation tool. I would recommend Aviary Phoenix. One, because it has an excellent interface, and two, because it’s simple and easy. Pretty close to Photoshop, but still lacking in complexity, as expected. If you like Phoenix, try out the other tools on Aviary. I’ve tried them all and I really like them.

EDIT //* 31 Dec, 2008 8:17 PM

7) Online Photo Editor

     This was just brought to my attention in the comments. How could I have missed it? I’ve never personally used it, but I’m definitely going to give it a shot. It looks pretty good. So far, I’ve seen a whole bunch of features such as rotations, color fixing, red eye removal, de-blurring, artistic effects such as sepia and black and white, as well as instant make-up. The instant make-up actually automatically detects faces. Excellente!

Well, that brings us to the end of the ONLINE tools. What about the software you can download that can take the place of Photoshop. I haven’t used all of these, but here is a list of what I have found so far. These are all for windows.

l Paint.net l Pixia l PhotoPlus l PhotoFiltre l CinePaint l Photobie l Photo! Editor l Phantasmagoria l ArtWeaver l  Active Pixels l PaintStar l Photo Pos Lite l Magix Xtreme Photo Designer l

There you have it. A post with the best online image manipulators and the links of downloadable programs that resemble Photoshop. Enjoy!

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Tags: aviary, editing, facebook, features, gimp, images, inkscape, manipulation, photoshop, pictures, splashup, sumopaint, windows

Recently, my blog has undergone some minor updates to appearances and the like. For example, I’ve added a LifeStream page. It’s really not much, but just a few features that have changed. You can read about it by clicking the link above. This is just another notification about a minor update. If you haven’t already heard, FaceBook Connect has been rolling out to many sites. Some sites include Cnet, Lifehacker, and Gizmodo. I’ve also rolled out my own Facebook integration for those who wish to comment using their Facebook account and want to have it appear on their feeds. It was only a matter of finding the right plugin and fiddling with the code in Wordpress. A beginner could do this. I just wanted to try it out. However, through my test, I found out the this system is imperfect. For one, the link that appears after I comment does not actually lead to the user’s Facebook page. It’s still a start in the right direction. I hope to have this feature fixed in a couple of days. As of now, users can login by clicking the Facebook Connect button and logging on Facebook. A badge will appear in the top right hand corner with your profile picture. You are then logged on and can freely comment on any post using your Facebook profile. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our Facebook Friends.

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Tags: blog, connect, facebook, features, internet, networking, wordpress

Seriously, more and more weapons? What has gotten into us this year? Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough the previous years for posts about weapons. Over the course of a single day, I stumbled upon records of two weapons mentioned. Most of my content is not exactly original, although some of it is. I get a lot from what I pick up through RSS feeds and websites I visit regularly. I only post on things I’m really interested in or that I find extremely peculiar or that warrants some discussion. For example, I think that these two items warrant some discussion, as with the AR-15 modded with a chainsaw and the RPG-30. The two items I have in mind to discuss today is the Multiple Kill vehicle (multi-kill vehicle) and the ninja blowgun and pocket knife combo, both of which I find extremely interesting. I don’t claim to be a weapons enthusiast or fanatic, but I do have a couple of knives and such and I do take an interest in new innovations such as these. I have roughly 7-8 knives, most of them pocketknives to carry around. I also have a couple of airsoft guns and one rifle. I do like to practice my aim, just as most guys would love to. So you could imagine my surprise when I came across the multi-kill vehicle currently being developed by the Missle Defense Agency. A test of the Multiple Kill Vehicle was conducted on December 2nd at the National Hover Test Facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The objectives of the test were to have the MKV-L hover under it’s own power and to be able to track it’s target and maintain in flight manueverability. Telemetry was sent to the ground and it proved to be a success. So why all this investment in a Multiple Kill Vehicle? What is it’s purpose? Well, it is supposed to supply protection and defense against intercontinental-range ballistic missles. Using tracking data from the Ballistic Missile Defense System, a vehicle would be able to scramble theses MKV-L’s. These vehicles would then track the missiles and hopefully take them down. It’s a great start to an excellent program. After taking a look at the video, I think it might even be better in close quarter combat situations. If the Army and Marines could deploy these things with a platoon, wouldn’t that be beneficial? After reading articles in Popular Science magazine, it looks like warfare is getting more and more technologically advanced. If we could program these things to follow our guys into combat and recognize friendly and enemy forces, wouldn’t it be massively helpful? I mean think about a room full of insurgents. If we sent in a multikill vehicle ahead of the humans, wouldn’t that eliminate the threat and cut out on the risk factor? Just a thought. Here is the video of the MKV-L in action.

The next weapon is the ninja blowgun and pocket knife combo. It’s both of them rolled into one. How cool is that? The price tag is only $14.94 sale price at swordsknivesanddaggers dot com. The product description reads: “Ninja blowgun and Pocket knife combo. 5″ closed and has a 3 1/2″ 440 stainless steel blade. Includes 2 pieces of black tubing to make your pocket knife blowgun. Also includes 3 darts and a nylon pouch.” It sounds good, but I wonder how powerful and how sturdy the blade of the pocket knife really is. Well it’s almost time for the holidays. In this case I think I’ll check it out after the holiday bum rush. I’ll write a review about it if I do end up getting it. 

That is all for this edition of weapons. If anything else that sounds cool shows up, you can find out more about it right here on my blog. Just as a little intro to my next blog posts, I’ll be talking about the year’s biggest fads and hits on the internet since it is almost the end of 2008. It’s time to usher in 2009 with THE BEST OF 2008 post. It’ll be the first annual BEST of [insert year here} post. I also have a couple of posts dealing with Hulu’s cool features that they are pushing out a little bit at a time. a look at holiday shopping and green gifts, how YouTube is embracing HD, and of course my green revolution post. Enjoy! It is all coming shortly.

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Tags: blowgun, environment, internet, knife, missile defense agency, multikill, ninja, vehicle, video, visual, weapon, youtube